Shooting JPEG images is similar to shooting color negative film and handing the roll to a photo lab for processing and printing. The results--overall--are generally good. But someone else is making decisions about sharpness, white balance, saturation, and other vital parameters that determine how the final image looks. In the case of digital cameras, a group of engineers...

Remember the Polaroid? You push the button and the print is ejected and developed right before your eyes. But rather than settle for these "straight" prints, for many years professional image-makers used the unique features of this technology to create wonderfully textured images as well. The process involved transferring the image from the original to damp watercolor...

The biggest news at photokina this year was perhaps the unveiling of Photoshop CS4, advancing this imaging application’s reputation as the leader in its field. But if you’re more interested in using other apps for raw conversion and workflow management alone (with some editing thrown in), then you’ll be happy to learn that there are also new iterations of Bibble, ACDSee Pro, and...

Even though I am pretty handy with Adobe's Photoshop there is always more to learn and so many new avenues to explore. As a photographer, I want to learn and play with as many of the new techniques as I can, applying those to my own work that are most appropriate. And as much as I would like to take a workshop with John Paul Caponigro or Eddie Tapp it just isn't...

Ever since the Pictorialist movement at the turn of the 20th century, photographers have always enjoyed applying what many have dubbed "painterly" effects to their images. Pixographers are no strangers to this desire to create artistic...

All Photos © 2004, Peter K. Burian, All Rights Reserved

The Adobe Photoshop series is the most popular among image-editing programs, and this software includes a vast range of image-enhancing features. While some of the available tools are quite easy to use, advanced image-correction techniques require sophisticated and time-consuming multi-step processes. These are...

Monitor calibration has become fairly mainstream over the past few years. Nearly everyone knows they should be calibrating their displays, and a fair percentage of them are actually doing it. And, with the cost and ease of use down into the normal (e.g., non-geek) level, there is really no reason to not calibrate your display.

Display calibration is important in...